Fresh from a success at NetJets that brought Bill Boisture
himself to a key face-to-face sit-down with a 31-year-old Excel captain, the Teamsters are
seeking to unionize more fractional operators, targeting Flight Options,
Flexjet and the rest.
NetJets and Teamsters Local 1108, formed this past April in
Columbus, Ohio as the exclusive union body for some 2,200 NetJets pilots,
reached an accord last month that's expected to raise the pay of those pilots
by 40% to 60%.
Starting salary for an entry-level cockpit job at NetJets is
$27,108 under the existing work agreement. More than a quarter of NetJets'
pilots have second jobs.
"Our pilots' salaries I'd say are about double what NetJets'
are," one West Coast aviation executive comments.
"It is not uncommon for new hires at NetJets to qualify
for government assistance programs," says Bill Olsen, the Excel-flying
president of local 1108 — i.e. Food Stamps. "That's one of the major issues we
felt had to be addressed. Our goal has been to make NetJets a career opportunity
rather than an entry-level job."
A ratification vote on the new contract is slated for
November 21.
Olsen sees the confrontation with NetJets as an
unprecedented victory for unions and for fractional pilots, historic in its
scope. "What just unfolded over the past year is something that happens once
every 25 to 50 years," he says. "It is monumental. It will affect the whole
industry, because in these challenging times pilots across the industry were
looking for a victory."
Olsen wants to press the advantage with 850-pilot Flight
Options, and also to unionize some 300 separately contracted Gulfstream pilots
at NetJets International.
The Teamsters have Bombardier Flexjet and the Cessna-TAG
CitationShares joint venture in their sights too.
NetJets and its pilots had been in dispute since October
2001. A proposed agreement said by the union to have been "notable for its
regressive nature" was rejected by 82% of voting members in August 2004.
Earlier this year the National Mediation Board temporarily suspended
negotiations between the two sides.
The Teamster pilots' complaints went beyond salaries to
working conditions and scheduling practices. "It's a very convoluted
system which is unfamiliar in aviation and
traditional airlines contracts," Olsen says.
Past instability in the workforce, he says, "has created an
unusual seniority system where pilots didn't have to upgrade for captain's
wages. It also created a scheduling system where 45% of the pilot group worked
two more days per month but were paid the same as pilots working less."
In other words, Olsen says, "You didn't get paid for the
extra two days work."
NetJets pilots picketed the Berkshire Hathaway annual
meeting in Omaha in April and they have picketed busy NetJets locations,
including Signature FBOs.
"Our issues have seemingly fallen on deaf ears," said
Captain Alan Hayes, a three-year NetJets pilot. "There is a real problem in
this company when our pilots are paid around half the industry average for
flying the same equipment."
"We are all here to let Warren Buffett and all his
shareholders know that we deserve a fair contract," Hayes said at the time of
the annual meeting. "While all of these investors are enjoying the fruits of
our labor, our pilots struggle to make ends meet.
"Mr. Buffett has always had a reputation of paying
exceptional employees what they deserve. We only ask for the same
consideration."
NetJets pilots would have been picketing here too this week
had a deal not been struck.
The pilots voted to strike in July. Talks resumed but broke
down on September 13. According to Olsen, NetJets president Bill Boisture,
after meeting with Berkshire Hathaway chief Warren Buffet and NetJets boss
Richard Santulli, flew to Olsen's base in Park City, Utah on September 22 in a
NetJets Citation X. "It was Bill Boisture and myself," Olsen says. The two
reached the basics of the agreement that was accepted October 8.
"Both sides negotiated long, hard and in good faith,"
Boisture said in an October 12 release that's believed to be NetJets' only
comment on the pilots problem. "This is a fair agreement and we are confident
that the pilots will endorse it as enthusiastically as the union leadership,"
Boisture said.
"I think it'll pass," Olsen told Show News. "I don't think
it will pass overwhelmingly but I think it will pass. It's a good start."
The new deal takes that rock-bottom entry-level NetJets
first officer salary of $27,108 to $39,000. A regular-schedule five-year
captain will make $90,000, up from $60,984. A 15-year captain will have a
guaranteed base wage of $143,000 per year.
The new pact includes better medical benefits, better access
to personnel records, more legal protections for pilots (cockpit voice recorder
tapes may no longer be used for disciplinary purposes, for example), improved
scope provisions including union pilot eligibility for Gulfstream slots and,
among many other changes, more liberal leave for union reps for doing union
business.
"They've set a new minimum to which everyone else in the
industry is going to have to go in order to attract pilots," Olsen says.
Fractional managers will no longer be able to tell their
people, "'You'll always make more than NetJets,'" he adds.
Flight Options is the Teamsters' next target because it's
the next-biggest fractional operator. Flight Options pilot salaries, Olsen
reckons, are about 15% above NetJets' current levels, but 30% to 45% percent
below the levels in the new agreement.
The Teamsters have already gotten the approval of about half
of Flight Options' pilots out of 65% required for the National Mediation Board
to approve a unionizing vote. If they decide to join, they'll be folded into
the NetJets local 1108 in Columbus. Olsen hopes to complete the pro-cess by the
end of 2006.
"This will be one of the great labor battles of
aviation history," he predicts, "where an organized movement must commit itself
to succeed, regardless of how much a company invests to beat it." This year's
accord is "the only one that's ever happened in the business jet industry,"
Olsen says. "It has defined the pilot's potential career within the business
jet industry."
"The NetJets pilots stepped up and laid the groundwork for
years to come."
Olsen is quick to thank existing airline pilots' unions for
their help, and says that the NetJets dispute and unionizing of other
fractional pilots has the attention and support of Teamsters president Jim
Hoffa and of former United Airlines union boss Rick Dubinsky.
